


Lessons from What's Poor

by Red



Series: "Lessons" Verse [3]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Always Says the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Possibly Say, Emotional Baggage, Established Relationship, Friendship, Hospitalization, Illnesses, M/M, Medical Procedures, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Erik, Smoking, a few aircraft carriers of it, and communication issues, as well as physical health issues, internalized ableism, is trying to work on his issues, so he's not AS protective these days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-01-16 07:38:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1337347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/pseuds/Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik and Charles have been together for a few years now, and in that time, Charles has never been anything else than utterly healthy. It's always Erik who's sorting pills, always Erik dealing with the whims of medicine. Which makes it an unwelcome shock when, early one Saturday, Charles wakes in a fever. </p><p>Facing a raging infection and everything that goes with, that's difficult enough. Balancing your pride, a concerned partner, the memories of old surgeries, and your partner's mental health--it isn't precisely Charles's idea of a Saturday night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Lessons from What's Poor by Red（中文翻译by芮球）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4131439) by [Rachel_Er](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachel_Er/pseuds/Rachel_Er)



> This takes place in the same universe as that [sink fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1275256), not, of course, that it matters or that you need to read the other story to make sense of this one. Honestly, I was intending to create more porn in that universe. 
> 
> This is, you may notice, somehow not porn. 
> 
> Though it's rather obvious as you read, I thought I'd note: odd-numbered chapters are Erik's point of view, and evens are Charles.

He startles awake. 

The room is dark and close. Claustrophobic. The blankets are smothering, too thick; the angle of the light is wrong. It's almost pitch dark. There’s no light at all. 

This isn’t his apartment, and there’s a second where all that fills his mind is that thought, all he can sense is the raw panic that accompanies it. This isn’t his apartment. 

Erik takes a slow breath in. It isn’t his apartment. 

But it is familiar. He breathes out, and presses his face back against the pillow. Easing the comforter down, Erik steadies his mind. He’s overheated, clammy all along his front where his skin is pressed against Charles, but at least--now that he knows where he is--it’s easy enough to suss out what's going on. They had a late night, they’re in Charles’s bed, and there’s no reason at all to wake anyone else with one of his ridiculous night terrors. It’s actually a bit of a shock that Erik didn’t already disturb Charles’s sleep--though he rests like the dead, Charles’s dreaming mind is usually attuned to Erik’s own. 

Chalking it up to what they’d put away at the department holiday party, Erik curls closer against Charles’s back, pressing his nose against the damp curls of his hair. And that’s when--Erik brings his arm carefully over to brace his hand against the hot skin over Charles’s sternum, feels the slow kick of Charles’s heart--that’s when he realizes it wasn’t a night terror. 

Charles is burning with fever, and Erik’s mind rapidly cycles back into panic before he remembers. 

Holiday party. Beer. A _lot_ of beer. Erik sighs, flooded with relief and annoyance. He didn’t even want to go. But no, Charles and his fellow educators. 

He shakes Charles awake, not gently. 

“Hey,” he mumbles, when Charles swats at him. “Come on. Get up. Out of bed. We had too much of Logan’s moonshine.”

Actually, Logan’s brewing skills are as startling to Erik as the man’s willingness to teach history to a bunch of snot-nosed kids. If he ever admits as much, though, Charles will be dragging him to every last excuse to fill a backyard with drunk teachers. 

Charles makes a nasal, undignified noise that Erik translates as, “And? So?” 

He sighs, nudging again at Charles’s shoulder. “So you can’t _sweat_ it out,” he says. He knows his tone isn’t exactly kind, but being short instead of actually showing concern is an old, unbreakable habit. 

Besides, Erik isn’t sure what he should be saying. He isn’t even sure if he should be concerned or not. As Charles pushes himself up with a groan, Erik stays still, letting his hand slip back to the bed. 

All Erik knows is, they’ve been together a while now, and he’s never seen Charles like this.

“God,” Charles says, with an unsteady laugh. He rubs a hand over his face. “I really should have set an alarm.” 

Erik doesn’t say anything. What would he? They’ve been together a few years now, but that’s hardly long enough for Erik to be making any judgement on how Charles manages his health. Until now, Erik’s never even thought about it. He’s never really even considered Charles has to manage his health at all. Charles always seems utterly well, and--at least to Erik--it seems all he has to manage is the logistics of navigating this discriminatory, segregated world. Though he can’t be sure--obviously, Charles could be hiding a few medicine cabinets in this clutter of an apartment--he’s always felt, of the two of them, it’s Erik who’s subsidizing pharmaceutical companies. 

Charles reaches over for his chair. His arms are shaking as he pulls himself into a position to transfer. Unwelcome though it may be, Erik can’t help sitting up beside him. 

“Do you--” he starts, before reconsidering. Offering help, it’s not something either of them take to kindly. “Are you feeling all right?” 

“I feel like I drank a great deal of homebrew with a very attractive man,” Charles says, grinning back at Erik. He braces himself, and transfers to the chair. There’s no ignoring the grunt of discomfort, no missing how unusually awkward the transfer looks. 

“Don’t talk about Logan while I’m in your bed,” is all Erik says. 

His concern must be overbearing, though. It’d be palpable to someone without telepathy. 

“Darling, I’ll live,” Charles tells him. He rubs at his face again, cursing under his breath. There’s a heavy pressure in the back of Erik’s skull; Charles must have a crushing headache. “Fuck. I just need to take a piss.” 

As he heads to the bathroom, Erik tracks the motion. There’s a halting rhythm in the way Charles moves, but--Erik turns to the bed, occupying himself with peeling back the sweaty sheets. 

But he’s obsessing. 

Erik changes the sheets, using the activity to distract his mind. If Charles says he’s all right, then Charles is all right, he repeats to himself. He listens to the faucet run, to Charles washing his hands. There’s a pause, then a wave of relief in their connection. 

Making the bed is quick work, soothing in it’s familiar simplicity. The pressure in Erik’s head is beginning to retreat, his thoughts righting again, but--

When Erik steps back, he notices he’s mitered the corners, military neat. He can’t stop tracing Charles’s body, in the movements of his chair and the metal in his spine. Shaking himself, Erik pulls the blankets and top sheets free, tries to leave them rumpled, the way Charles makes a bed. The way Charles needs his bed to look. “This isn’t a hospital,” he always says, and Erik can’t help thinking it must bother Charles far more than he ever lets on. 

Desperately, Erik needs to go in and check up on him. This is taking too long, his brain demands. How full was Charles’s bladder? How dangerous is that? Should he be calling paramedics? Can’t this--couldn’t that kill someone? 

The bed looks staged, a mockery of unmade, and Erik can’t get it right and still Charles isn’t fucking done. Rather than going into the bathroom, Erik retreats into the kitchen. The neatest part of the apartment, being surrounded by metal, it sometimes calms him, but by now he’s far enough along that it only makes Erik feel lethal; a bomb weaponized by fixtures, appliances, knives. 

He’d be calm if he knew Charles was okay, his mind tells him. That’s all he needs to do, is just go in and help Charles, that’s all. 

He isn’t going to do that. 

Erik reaches up on top of the fridge, fishing out the pack of cigarettes he keeps hidden. At Charles’s urging, he’s basically quit. But he isn’t sure about taking anything else right now, after a night drinking and when he might need to drive Charles to the hospital, and he opens the window to lean out and light up. 

The routine calms him. He stops thinking about the hospital. 

He thinks about Charles. He thinks of Magda, her easy grins and her art and laugh, and he thinks of how he can’t fuck things up again, not twice in the same way. 

When Charles leaves, Erik thinks, it isn’t going to be thanks to the toxic, obsessive smothering Erik’s been prone to since getting shipped back.

Outside, the air is sharp with cold. Dense clouds fleece the sky. It smells like they may get snow. Erik smokes, watching the trees, the steady lethargic sway of dark branches. Charles lives on a side road, all houses and apartments and an ancient corner store, and his window overlooks a perfectly maintained yard. A cat stops on the opposite sidewalk, as if looking for cars. It sprints toward the complex. 

“Are you smoking?” 

Stubbing the cigarette out in the barren planter under the ledge, Erik steps hastily back from the window. Charles is in the entryway, still half in the living room. He looks better, but not quite himself.

Closing the window with his powers, Erik berates himself for wasting a perfectly good half of a cigarette. What’s he going to do, _explain_ the smell away? 

“Just the one,” he admits. 

Charles is still pale, but it may just be the dim light from the street. 

“Hmm.” Though he looks less than pleased, Charles wheels forward to put a hand on Erik’s hip. “You’re freezing.” 

It’s easy to fold against Charles. Under his arm, Charles’s shoulders are warm and dry, the odd fever broken. 

“It _is_ winter,” Erik says. Right now, he’s more embarrassed of himself than anything else. Erik rests his head on Charles’s, not ready to meet his gaze.

Surprisingly, Charles doesn’t complain about the reek of smoke. He wraps his arms around Erik’s waist, and sighs. 

“I never mean to worry you, my dear,” Charles says. His voice is soft and gentling, like Erik’s something wild he caught, and Erik bristles. Charles continues to talk about how there’s no harm done, how they should just head back to bed, but Erik’s flushed with shame. 

Standing, he turns to one of the low cabinets. 

_I’m not here for you to fix_ , he nearly says. It takes all his control to bring the glasses down, to fill them steadily, to hold them without cracking them clean apart. His walls are up, so he’s not sure how much Charles hears. There’s a vicious part of him that hopes, _all of it_ , but what he says is “We’re probably dehydrated.”

When he offers the glass, Charles wordlessly accepts it. There’s a confusion in his expression, but mostly he just looks exhausted. 

“You’re right,” Charles replies. 

The spoken or the unspoken, Erik isn’t sure to which he’s answering. 

They drink in silence. And when he’s done, Erik leaves, heading to the bathroom, himself. 

He takes a long piss, staring at the catheter looped in the trash. Carefully, he thinks of nothing at all. 

When he returns to bed, Charles is already under the covers. Erik pulls the sheet over himself, and turns the other way. 

Sleep doesn’t come easy to him on the best of nights, and right now Charles feels distant, like his mind is far-off, occupied only with the private concerns of Charles. It’s a lot to expect, Erik tells himself, that you’ll have a telepathic partner at all. Much less that he’d be there to trick your brain into resting, night after night. Erik watches the darkness. He listens to the quiet sound of Charles breathing. 

It’s no surprise that he’s still up four hours later, when the chime of a cell phone alarm goes off, and Charles wakes to head back to the bathroom.


	2. Chapter 2

The moment Erik woke him, he suspected, but hoped it was simply his own idiocy that brought on the symptoms. 

Really. If he’s going to take in that much fluid, and then drunkenly pass out--sleeping right through when he’d usually cath--it’s his own damn fault he wakes up feeling hideous. 

When he caths the first time, though, it’s almost indisputable. The urine comes out clouded, the smell of it sharp and tellingly sulphuric. Still, he tries to excuse it: he’s draining what appears to be a gallon of piss. Of _course_ it stinks. Of _course_ the color’s off. It’s just concentrated, that's all. Charles Xavier is simply a massive idiot who decided to drink a load of beer followed by precisely zero water, but he’ll be better in the morning. 

And by the time he’s finished in the bathroom, he does feel better. Markedly so. Maybe still a touch off-kilter, sure, maybe he fumbles it with Erik there in the dark of the kitchen. It’s far from the first panic attack Erik’s had around him, and Charles thought they had it down. Navigating one together shouldn't have gone so poorly. 

But in a way, it’s easier that way. Fumbling it, letting it go south like that--it’s better to just nudge Erik into one of his aloof, defensive moods. 

Erik worries. There’s no missing it. Erik worries, constantly; he acts harsh and cold to nearly everyone, but he worries about everything and everyone with a depth and ferocity that is frankly humbling. It’s sweet when it’s his coworkers, or stray animals, or mutantkind as a whole. It’s even cute when it’s Charles he’s worried about, granted it’s something inconsequential. But right now, with this?

Right now, Charles is galled enough as it is, he certainly doesn’t need Erik to help him feel any more pathetic that he does already. Christ, Charles thinks, he can’t even get drunk with his damn boyfriend without working out some algorithm for when to next shove a tube down his own dick. When they stumbled into bed and made out, he couldn’t even feel it when his boyfriend shot early. He couldn’t even feel it when Erik thrust against his thigh, couldn’t even feel the come on his hip. 

Charles has had a long time to get used to being paralyzed. He thought he used up all his anger as a teenager, in those first brittle, painful years after the injury. But it’s been ages since the last infection, and every setback reminds him of every long week he spent laid-out and helpless in a hospital bed. The very idea of Erik hovering, it’s enough to make Charles withdraw his powers, to be glad of it when Erik pushes him away. 

When Charles sleeps again, he does so heavily, his mind closed-off and dreamless, and it’s the second time he caths, four hours later--running ahead of schedule, figuring the beer’s still working through his system--when he fully accepts the reality of his situation. 

The urine’s still clouded; the smell, if anything, is worse. He flushes, and scrubs his hands yet again.

There’s no avoiding it. He’s got a UTI, and from the look of it--and how he feels, head aching and arms weak--it’s a not one of the simple ones. 

At least, he thinks humorlessly, it means he isn’t completely to blame. Bad as it is, this infection had to be coming on long before the party, though the drinks didn’t help matters. 

It’s early, far too early to call Moira’s office. Around six, and the winter sun has a long time yet to rise. Charles never is up at this time, not if he can help it, but he doubts he could get back to sleep. 

He starts up the shower, and doesn’t answer the tendril of curiosity Erik sends. Transferring into the shower chair, he lets the water warm him as he feels Erik’s thoughts retract again, as Erik’s mind returns to cold-and-guarded, and when he’s finally done and dressed Erik’s up preparing them a perfunctory breakfast. 

They eat in silence. Erik’s already got his boots on. Like Charles, he doesn’t have work. But it isn’t uncommon for him to retreat, even when Charles is more welcoming. As much as he may open up to Charles, close as they may become, there’s always going to be something in Erik that needs the ordered solitude of his own space.

It’s around seven-thirty when Erik kisses him at the door--it confounds Charles, sometimes, that Erik builds his life around a multitude of self-imposed rules, but at least some of them are as lovely as the ‘never leave on a bad note’ one--and Charles figures, then, that he may as well text Moira directly. 

-

Driving to the office is slow going. 

It’s around noon, and by this time, Charles feels as if he has the flu on top of everything else. And if that weren’t enough, by noon, it’s been snowing for three hours. The first snow means nearly every brain on the road is broadcasting «snow snow oh fuck snow» at full-volume. Charles’s included, his car is small and not built for inclement weather. Snow usually means taking the truck. 

But the truck means taking Erik. And that, Charles thinks, is not an option. Charles gets to the office safe enough--it’s not snowing _that_ heavily, he convinces himself--and parks. Thankfully, someone’s already had the courtesy to shovel the path. 

Moira’s really more friend than a doctor, Charles likes to think. They were undergrads together, and it helps, knowing she’s not about to pity him. She's not a fool, and she's not the sort to mince words. 

Which is why he knows he’s in trouble, the minute the medical assistant takes his vitals and leaves. 

Charles braces himself.

“Charles Francis Xavier,” Moira starts, storming in the exam room, “Give me your keys. Now.” 

Frowning up at her, Charles thinks-- _I know I’m feverish, but_ \--and Moira reaches out her hand, clearly demanding. 

“I see your car out there. I see how your husband--” 

“--he’s not--”

Moira just keeps talking.

“--Is conspicuously absent. You drove here, by yourself, in the snow, and your temperature was--what, again?”

Charles mumbles the number, and Moira makes him repeat it, louder.

“Thirty-nine point five,” he says, sullenly. He very nearly crosses his arms, but already he feels childish enough. Drumming his fingers on the armrest of his chair, he looks in the general vicinity of Moira’s feet.

“You’re tachycardic, febrile, your blood pressure is through the roof--Charles, when did you notice this coming on?” 

“Last night, around one. I’m sick, Moira, not stupid,” he tells her. Looking up, he notices she’s at least stopped holding her hand out for the keys. She sits back on the edge of the exam table, facing him.

“Yes, well. You let that fever cook your brain long enough, you might get brought down to average,” she jokes. Charles gives her a wan smile. He knows what she’s going to say, already. 

She leans over to take his pulse manually. It’s one of those motions he always figured doctors did just to look like they were doing something. Her mind is calculating, as if she’s trying to convince herself it’d be safe to treat this with the resources she has, and he watches her frown at the thready skip of his pulse. 

“I hear there’s this place,” she says, straightening up again. “Where they can give you antibiotics any time of day. I think it’s called the hospital. I even hear tell that it’s open at one in the morning.” 

He laughs. “Yeah. Pretty sure I’ve been there a few times. Look, Moira, can’t you--you know, put in a word? If it’s bad as all that, why not just admit me directly.” It’s something he’s done several times before, for all the surgeries and their repairs, and the less hospital he has to see the better.

“Sorry,” she replies. “Remember the old ‘Moira doesn’t have privileges at the nice hospital’ conversation? Still true. And besides, maybe you just need a liter of fluid and one good dose of antibiotics. They can do that in emergency. You might not even be admitted. Now. Give up the keys.”

“Didn’t you just say I needed--”

“Oh, no. No. Sick enough for an emergency room, sick enough for an ambulance, that’s my motto.” 

“Come off it, Dr. MacTaggert,” he snaps. The hospital, sure, he’ll put up with that; he’ll even deal with the emergency room. But if he has to use his powers to get out of an ambulance, he’s more than willing to do so. “I’ve gone thirty-three years on this planet without needing an ambulance.” 

The look Moira gives him is deeply suspicious.

“Yes, okay, fine. There was air transport, but that was just the once. Christ, Moira, I was intubated! Obviously they weren't about to let me drive. Besides, the hospital isn’t even that far.” 

“It’s snowing, and your brain is fried. You’re public hazard enough _without_ you attempting to drive. Across the street would be too far,” she says. “But, I guess--if it’s that important to you. It’s against my medical advice, but there is another option.” 

Brightening up immediately, he grins at her. “Moira, you’re a saint. But can you really--”

She holds up her hands. “I’m at work! Did you see the waiting room? Do you think I can just sneak off? Besides,” she says, smirking, “I got a ride.” 

“From? Moira, you can’t say that and not tell me,” he demands. She just waves him off. 

“Go on, then. He has the day off, we both know it.” 

The idea of Erik crashing in Moira’s office, demanding answers and scooping Charles off to a goddamn hospital--Charles almost texts Raven, instead. 

Then he remembers how well Raven drives on dry ground. People joke that her partner drives better than her, but Charles thinks that a bit unfair: Irene’s a remarkable driver, and it’s fascinating to ride with her. Not everyone can predict where the car’s about to go. Pity Irene’s out of town. 

Resigned, he pulls out his mobile. He considers his options. Should he text, Erik might accuse him of being too casual. Should he call, he might spring one of the several traps cluttering the intricate landscape of Erik’s mind. Charles never calls--voices divorced from thoughts are distinctly unsettling, and the evolution of technology never pleased him more than when he finally had an excuse not to talk on the phone--and Erik, knowing the reasoning, might be overly concerned by the call. 

Eventually, he chooses to text. Maybe Erik will be annoyed, but at least the orderly way his mind displays irritation would be a welcome distraction from the cluttered press of an emergency department. 

As Moira watches, he types, erasing and rewriting the message three times before hitting send.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say, thanks so very much for all the comments & kudos, and my apologies for the slow update speed!

Pushing himself through another set of sit-ups, Erik misses the kinetic hum that crackles around a cell whenever there’s an incoming message or call. The loud buzz of a text notification from a phone resting on a metal desk, that’s what stills him.

He sprawls back on the floor, panting. Exhausted and sore, he simply rests there a moment. Listening to the silence of his apartment, waiting to see if there’s another message forthcoming. Letting his breath, letting his thoughts settle. 

There’s few people who have his number. And fewer still would think to text him at twelve-thirty on a Saturday afternoon. 

Erik takes his time catching his breath. It’s a full minute before he forces himself up to stand. 

The message is from Charles. Unsurprising.

 _At the offices of the lovely Dr. MacTaggert_ , it reads. _Don’t suppose I could beg a ride?_

He stares at the screen, decoding the message. The “lovely Dr. MacTaggert” bit, that’s just bait. That’s Charles trying to get Erik to ignore the rest: that Charles is at Moira’s office, so the fever was more serious than what he let on last night. That he must have drove there, ill, and in this. 

Erik glances again out the large windows that take up a wall of his space. The skies are densely grey, and snow is still falling in great flakes, the kind of heavy snow that packs down well. Maybe Charles is just second-guessing a drive back home in his little car. Maybe he needs to run some errands, pick up antibiotics, get some groceries; maybe he just doesn't trust the other drivers. Charles always gets a migraine driving in this kind of weather, with everyone broadcasting abject panic. 

None of these excuses sit well. 

Charles has driven in worse than this. Charles wouldn't be seeing a doctor--even if a friend--unless something was very drastically wrong. 

And Charles wouldn’t ask for help. Not from Erik, not in the mood he was in this morning. 

For a few minutes, Erik is just standing there, phone in hand, staring at the snow. Off-balance from last night, he's still smarts from Charles’s distance. He came home for the order of it, to lick his wounds in a space he understood. 

Going back out, he knows, will only bring more uncertainty. 

_Give me twenty_ , is all he types in the end before he goes to shower and change, and fifteen minutes later, he’s pulling up to Moira’s office. 

Charles’s car is in the frontmost spot, blanketed in snow. 

They’ll have to move it. It’s the first concrete thought Erik has managed since he got in the truck, his mind a deliberate static of not-panicking, and he lets his powers soak into every familiar bolt and coil of the vehicle. 

It’d be no feat for him to just do it now. He levitated tanks for a living, a Prius is hardly any challenge. But Erik finds himself at a loss, unwilling to do anything without Charles’s permission. 

Locking the truck, he tracks up through the snow. 

There’s a burst of warmth when he opens the clinic doors. While the heat is cranked up in the office--several degrees higher than Erik ever keeps the truck--most of it’s likely Charles. Despite the temperature he’s already bundled in coat and scarf, and waiting for Erik by the front entrance with an expression fond enough to make Erik wonder if the earlier distance wasn’t just a product of his imagination.

“Hello, love,” Charles says, smiling up. His head is tilted in obvious invitation, and Erik stoops to indulge. 

When he kisses Charles, the flush over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose is only more apparent. He’s radiating heat, as if still burning up, and Erik only wishes he could blame it on the overbearing warmth of the office.

“Hello,” he replies. Standing again, Erik puts his hands in his coat pockets, looking down at the papers folded in Charles’s lap. Perhaps it’s just to the pharmacy after all. Only, he looks like shit, Erik thinks. Just as ill as he did last night, at any rate, when he was soaking the sheets in sweat. 

“Well,” Erik continues, trying for nonchalance. “Where do you need to go?”

From their connection--stronger again, now, as Charles isn’t shielding like he was in the morning--Erik can tell Charles is hesitant. 

He watches Charles fold the papers again, into fourths and eighths, his gloved hands tight on the edges. “I have--” Charles pauses, like he’s not sure how to continue. 

He looks searchingly at Erik before he continues. “I have a bit of a fever, and Moira would like for me to get IV antibiotics. As she’s not keen on starting them herself, and neither is she letting me drive… I, ah. I need a ride to the hospital.” 

‘A bit of a fever’ is very likely Charles for ‘I’ve gone septic’, Erik thinks, but he refrains from saying as much. 

“Isn’t that what ambulances are for,” he asks. It comes out much more demanding than he'd intended, and Charles frowns, his brightness in their connection again banking back. 

«I am not shelling out a few thousand dollars for a twenty-minute ride just to treat a damn UTI», Charles sends. But there’s more, Erik can sense from the rhythm of Charles’s thoughts, that he’s concerned about than money. «Now. Shall I call myself a cab, or--»

«No. Charles, of course not,» Erik sends, before speaking. “Let’s get going before they’re completely backed up with accidents.” Charles doesn’t respond, but he sticks the papers in his coat pocket, and Erik takes that as acceptance. Together, they head outside. 

The pavement’s thick with snowfall by now, and Charles wheels through without a word. At least, Erik thinks, the chair has decent traction. 

“Okay if I move your car?” Erik asks, “Need anything from it?” 

Charles shakes his head, waves tiredly at the car. “By all means.” 

Standing at Charles’s side, Erik raises his hand, extending his power to raise the Prius smoothly. It takes more effort to keep it this steady--steady enough, that is, to keep a layer of snow perfect and intact--but the effort pays off. Beside him, Charles perks up, seemingly delighted as ever by the slightest display of Erik’s mutation. The car floats from the front to a vacant spot in the far back of the lot, and lands without a sound. 

Charles reaches over, then, to grasp Erik’s hand. His glove is soaked through with melted snow. “Thank you, Erik.” 

Erik squeezes his hand once, before continuing on toward the truck. 

“It was nothing,” he replies, unlocking the truck with thought. _I’d move far more for you_ , he wants to say, watching Charles navigate through to the passenger side. It’s not been shoveled at all, this far out in the lot, and Charles is wearing those ridiculous thin wool gloves--the ones with no fingertips, the ones that do nothing to protect him from cold. But he doesn’t complain, of course; he doesn’t make any indication he feels a thing. 

Climbing into the cab, Erik starts up the engine and heat. There’s things Charles will let him offer help with--dishes, laundry, the cooking, thank god--but even between both snow and fever, Charles would never ask with this. 

When he opens the passenger side door, he’s visibly sweating. Erik fiddles with the broken radio, trying not to watch. 

The truck is hardly one of those new monstrosities you see in the suburbs, a storey high with more towpower than the owner has sense. It’s an ancient Datsun that cost less than a month’s rent, and to be honest it only runs thanks to Erik’s intervention. Regardless, unlike Charles’s car, the cab still isn’t quite level with his chair. Though it’d be more sensible to buy a newer vehicle, Erik’s long considered buying a lift for this one--he could build hand brakes and one of those cranes to get the chair to the truck bed well enough on his own, but the lift seems more complicated--so Charles could use the truck on his own. For now, though, getting in the cab means Charles has to physically pull himself part way to get in it. It’s not ideal, by any means, but Charles has the upper body strength to make it seem effortless; he’s done it countless times. 

Once he’s set the brakes on his chair, Charles strips off his gloves and scarf, tosses them in on the seat. He rubs his hands together for a moment before grabbing the bars on the inside of the door and on the side of the cab, and Erik feels his pull on the truck. And at that, Erik finally looks over. 

While Charles does a preparatory tug every time--as if testing the bars--the force exerted on the metal is different this time. Less--certain, Erik thinks. 

Weaker. 

“Charles, are you--” 

“It’s fine,” Charles snaps. His head is down, but it’s impossible to miss the way his arms are trembling, how his knuckles are white as he tightens his grip. He pulls again, the sharp tug that usually signals he’s about to bring himself up. 

His right hand slips. It’s before he even had transferred any weight to his arms, but Erik reaches over instinctively. 

« _Erik_ », he feels. It’s less a word, and more a stab of warning in his mind that forces Erik to withdraw, an almost physical rebuff. Flustered, Erik stares at his hands, where he’s now got them, safely clenched around the wheel. 

There’s a crushing miasma of insulted pride and resentment and just raw weariness, and--as much experience as Erik has with shielding, with teasing his own thoughts from Charles's even when submerged in a vast swell of his telepathy--right in that moment, Erik can't tell if the helplessness he’s suffocating in is even his own.

“Fuck’s sake,” Charles curses, adjusting his grip, like he’s going to try again. 

Erik can’t watch. If Charles gets upset, Erik thinks, then he gets upset. Already, he’s been pushing himself far too hard for too long. Already he’s got a massive fever and he’s visibly ill and Erik should’ve taken him to the hospital twelve fucking hours ago. 

Reaching over again, Erik grabs Charles’s arm. 

“I’ve told you before, buy proper gloves if you want to feel your hands,” he says. “Let me help. Just the once.” 

The expression he makes, the wave of indignation from their link--Charles clearly wants to fight it. He wants to tell Erik off, to just yank himself up in the cab as he’s always done.

It’s more telling than anything else to how sick Charles is that, instead, he sighs and nods.

Erik pulls his hand back, and exerts his power just enough to draw Charles’s chair parallel with the seat. Charles transfers himself easily from there. Levitating the chair into the truck bed, same as he always does, Erik watches Charles arrange his legs and buckle the seatbelt. 

Shifting into reverse, Erik starts backing out of the lot. He doesn’t expect Charles to say anything, and he doesn’t. He’s just staring forward, even his thoughts a cold blank as Erik begins driving. The radio only works if Erik uses his mutation, if he concentrates on it, but right now he can just manage watching the road. 

They wind up stuck behind a city bus, then a plow. The drive drags silently on, twenty minutes soon gone by, and the two of them not halfway there.

At least, Erik thinks, they don’t have to drive clear out to the VA for Charles. Not, of course, that Erik would let Charles be prodded by those--

“The only reason you think they’re trying to kill you,” Charles says, quite suddenly, “is because you’ve only been when you weren’t well.” 

Erik snorts, incredulous but glad for the interruption. With how drawn and tired he appears--and with the wall he’d thought Charles had between them--Erik didn’t imagine Charles would listen in. And while it’s not a subject he enjoys, if it keeps Charles talking, Erik supposes that’s worth the discomfort. 

“It’s not just me,” Erik replies, shifting as the snowplow slows once again to a sluggish crawl. “You’ve seen just how difficult it is to get a refill. They _want_ to admit us. Everyone knows there’s twice the red tape for mutants, there’s no money in it, having us well and beyond their walls. They don’t want us to be stable, they just want to be subjects.” 

He’s given Charles this talk before. He’s given it literally every time he’s filled out a form or waited on hold for some human to give him some pedantic lecture on wait periods and eligibility brackets, so Charles could very well recite it himself. Though Charles makes a disbelieving half-smile, for once he doesn’t argue the point. 

For a few blocks, they fall into silence again, before Charles responds.

“Yeah. It isn’t just you. But it’s not some grand conspiracy hatched in the depths of the Pentagon, either. Anywhere you go, everywhere you turn--you can sense the doctors salivating from a mile off. A telepathic neurology patient, that must be Christmas for them. I was never happier than when my ‘case’ finally got signed off to orthopedics,” Charles blurts. The words come out pressured, angry. Like a thing lanced open.

Erik blinks. It’s the first Charles has ever spoke so much about his time in the hospital. 

When Erik looks over, Charles is rubbing at his face again. 

“God, Erik. I don’t want to do this.” 

Watching him, Erik keeps his mind sensing the plow ahead of them, the cars behind. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s starting to think he never will.

“I know," he eventually manages.

Charles looks away, leaning against the door, like he’s watching the constant arc of snow flying from the plow’s blade. 

«I’ll have you home soon, I promise,» Erik thinks, fervent. 

If he could, he’d turn around now. In the back of his mind, he starts running the scenario. And, actually-- 

Now that he’s thought of it, how hard could it be? Break in somewhere, steal the medications, may as well use the bit of paramedic training he'd been given--

«You are _not_ going to rob a hospital,» Charles sends, «and you’re _definitely_ not starting an IV on me.»

Smirking, Erik goes back to watching the road. “You have no sense of adventure,” he says. Charles laughs. 

“I’ll have you know, I drove in this weather with a fever over 104,” Charles brags, far too proud, and Erik shoots him a look. 

“What’s that saying, about foolishness and bravery?”

Charles reaches over to pat his thigh. “You have no sense of adventure, my dear,” he intones, and before Erik can think of a reply, Charles tightens his grip, turning the touch into a sharp squeeze that quiets Erik immediately. Were they in any other situation, Erik would probably already be half-hard, just from that--it’s one of those gestures of casual dominance which often preludes an interesting night in--but as it is, it’s just settling. 

And, for the rest of the ride, Charles leaves his hand, firm and sure.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, warnings for ableist language/internalized ableism, as well as most of the medical procedural stuff.

It’s clear they’re going to be in emergency all night, the minute Erik pulls around the corner. Most of the lot is full, and there’s six ambulances and a dozen police cars and the racket of a helicopter besides, and it is eminently ridiculous that Charles is here in the first place. 

He would say as much, but it’s unlikely to do him any good. And not just because Erik’s currently sold on the whole “Charles is one minute away from going into septic shock” thing. 

Under his hand, Erik’s thigh has gone tense. 

Charles watches him out of the corner of his eye. Erik’s jaw is clenched, the quiet ease that he’d been in for the last part of the drive vanished. All the commotion is hyper-saturated, and the snow’s blinding despite the clouds, and Charles thinks, no wonder. Sending a wordless inquiry, Charles is expecting to sense one of those shadowed, vicious places in Erik’s mind. 

But all he gets from the connection is a back-burner sort of irritation and something not unlike calculation. Erik’s not panicking. It’s more as if he’s plotting, as if the whole antibiotics-theft scheme is still under consideration. 

Right about now, Charles is feeling far more amenable to the idea.

“We forgot the placard,” Erik grumbles under his breath. His thoughts are starting to veer toward _should have left last night_ , and Charles finds himself fighting off his own irritation. 

“Erik,” he starts, meaning to continue with a reassurance that he’s fine, thanks so much, this is all overkill anyway. But then Erik glances over, eyebrows raised, and that’s just great. 

Erik always picks up on Charles’s concern at the best possible time: after the fact, when Erik’s already defensive. 

“What,” Erik says, flat. 

It’s not a question. He looks forward studiously, as if it actually takes any concentration at all for him to wedge his stupid truck in what appears to be the last available spot. “Which is it. The people, the noise? The helicopter? What don’t you think I can handle--”

“Please,” Charles interrupts. He’s got a another headache coming on, so if Erik’s going to be obtuse, that’s his prerogative. Charles just doesn’t want to hear it now. “You know I don’t think of it like that.” 

He’s expecting a fight, but Erik just sets the brake and--wonder of wonders--concedes. 

“I know. And I’m sorry, but--I’ll manage. I always do. And right now, you should be worried about yourself.”

To his surprise, Charles finds himself _disappointed_. 

An argument on top of all the hospital commotion may make his head explode, but it at least it’d be normal. He’s sick of this entire mess, and the idea that Erik might be coddling him eats at Charles’s already-damaged pride. 

“ _You_ think _I_ can’t manage, then. Is that it?” he tries. Erik just does the horrendous teeth-grinding thing he always does whenever he’s refusing to rise to Charles’s bait during a fight. He gets out of the truck without a word and stomps back toward the truck bed. 

Either out of deference to Charles’s misgivings about having the entire hospital treat them both as some fascinating curiosity, or out of his own previous experiences, Erik doesn’t use his powers to get the chair out. While he climbs up to grab the chair, Charles busies himself with tugging on his gloves and scarf trying to calm himself as he listens to Erik’s quiet mental grumbling. 

It’s not fair, Charles reminds himself. Picking a fight with your boyfriend just for a distraction, it’s not fair to either of them. Even when he’s not at his best, Erik’s mind is always a wonderfully elaborate place. Charles has always found it steadying to have Erik about, his thoughts a lovely backdrop to anything--reading, grading papers, cooking, the absurdly fantastic sex--and driving Erik off just for entertainment’s sake only to suffer a hospital crammed full of panicked and hurting minds… Not the most clever plan. He’s calmed himself quite a bit by the time he’s cracking the door open when Erik comes alongside. 

Which is exactly when he also notices Erik’s thoughts, and his expression, and how he’s standing up on a goddamn curb. 

“Great,” he surmises. 

Just fucking great. 

Of course the last spot is this narrow. Of course Erik can’t own a sensible compact. Of course they’re right up against the sidewalk and not, say, right up against a sensible compact that a ferrokinetic boyfriend could encourage to be just a _touch_ more compact, and of course his wheelchair isn’t going to fit in the three damn inches between truck and cement.

“I can pull back out,” Erik offers, gruff. If he didn’t think it’d just dissolve into hysteria, Charles would laugh. For his part, Erik doesn’t seem to notice the double-entendre. «Or I could--» Erik sends, along with a mental handwave that sums up using his ability. 

Charles sighs. Erik getting back in the truck, backing it up, setting up the chair again--that seems like a needlessly long production. And Erik’s never shy, never been ashamed to be mutant, but having everyone know immediately--it’s not worth it, not to Charles. 

But Erik is willing. Absolutely so, he’s just waiting for the word. It helps, Charles finds, knowing that however much he nettles Erik, the guy’s still willing to indulge him in whatever stupid whim.

So Charles lets his pride settle like a stone. He straightens up, meeting Erik’s gaze, but before he asks, Charles realizes suddenly how beneficial it would be for the both of them if this wasn’t some _favor_. 

An order, Charles thinks quickly. It’s not like it’s about to be anything sexual, but like keeping Erik in hand while he drove--well, it’s always been obvious that Erik’s proclivities can extend beyond the bedroom. Even if Erik isn’t in the mood to play along, it’ll at least save Charles a little face. He raises his chin a half-inch. 

Instantly, Erik responds, breaking eye contact. 

Maybe he’s not actually submitting, Charles thinks. Maybe he’s just _allowing_ Charles to scrounge up whatever shreds of dignity he can find. He isn’t about to search Erik’s mind to find out. 

There’s a telling wave of interest in their connection, and that’s enough. Charles latches on to it. 

“You’re going to lift me down,” he commands in a soft voice. If Erik is surprised, his mind doesn’t reflect it. He nods, short and scarcely noticeable, and sets the brakes on the chair. 

They’ve not done this. Not once. The closest would be Erik manipulating the chair with his ability, or the times he’s laughingly offered an arm when Charles has sunk too far in the overstuffed couch he can’t bear parting with, or when Erik is caught up in lust and he hauls Charles close. 

None of it is anything like this. 

When Erik steps close, he’s silent. He’s still looking a bit to the side, his mind is wordlessly, sweetly subservient. Charles finds he has the courage to reach out then. He winds his arms around Erik’s shoulders, one hand clenching hard at his back. _I own you_ , the grip says, and Erik’s mind flares, registering the discomfort. Soaking it in. 

Erik puts his arms around him in return, and there’s a second of hesitation. «Sir?» Erik sends, and though that’s never failed to turn him on in the past, somehow now it makes everything wretched. 

«Get on with it, I don’t care how,» he thinks, imperious, and tightens his grip again. Erik hisses out a breath, quietly accepting the mistreatment. When Erik puts his hands on him, it’s low enough that Charles can’t feel a thing. 

The way Erik holds him, though. 

Charles has seen it in Erik’s memories, that he’s had to lift bodies before. The dead, the dying. There was a long dream, once, that Charles is certain was all memory--a young Erik, crawling over endless scrub with a comrade on his back. While Charles never expected it to be like that-- he doesn’t even know what to expect--how Erik holds him is still a surprise. When Erik lifts him, he doesn’t do it properly, not in the way of some physical therapist or nurse or any of the dozens of ancillary staff. It’s nothing like how Charles has found himself handled before, Erik doesn’t hold him like he’s trying to mind his own back. Through Erik, he can tell Erik’s supporting his thighs; he’s got both hands on Charles’s ass, which in any other circumstance would be flattering. And Erik doesn’t linger, it’s all one quick smooth movement as he twists and sets Charles down.

All the same. There was something very intimate, something servile in the way Erik did it, and it takes Charles a little longer to let go. 

“Okay,” he whispers against Erik’s neck. _Thanks_ , he wants to say. But that makes it feel too much like a favor again, like the word would tip the control back out of his hands. So he rubs gently over where he’d had Erik clenched, before. He clears his throat. 

“Okay,” he repeats. “Let’s get this all over with, yeah?” 

He can sense Erik’s collecting himself. There’s a muddled riot of thought that Charles isn’t yet ready to brave. 

But then Erik straightens, and Charles lets go. 

“Yeah,” Erik agrees. He sounds strained. At least they’ll have time to talk about it in the waiting room. 

He pushes ahead, and Erik walks at his side, always just a half-step behind. 

-

The emergency room, as he expected, gives him an immediate and crushing migraine. There’s a reason he doesn’t go out of his way to find a crowd, and this is it: a hundred-some brains, all fixated on some horrid thing. They get in the surprisingly short queue for triage, Erik standing close. Charles lets himself brush the surface of Erik’s thoughts, then. They’re focused, welcome in their orderliness; he’s doing his usual mental sweep of the room. When he notices Charles is skimming, he opens further to their link, inviting Charles along. 

The sweeps used to unnerve Charles, to be honest. At the very least, he’d thought, they surely didn’t help Erik’s agoraphobia. But by now, he’s become rather comfortable with the concept. Erik’s certainly more relaxed when he knows how many exits he’s working with, and they only seem to do any harm when there’s something Erik finds objectionable in the room. There’s a few armed officers, Charles senses with Erik, in a room nearby, but just knowing they’re present means Erik can dismiss them as a threat. Though Charles doesn’t listen in all that often, there’s always a satisfaction to reading Erik as he finishes scanning a new place, to feeling the map click into place, like the last sequence in a complex chain. 

By the time he’s signing the intake forms, the headache is down to a low-level throb. By the time they’ve taken his vital signs and triaged him straight into the impressive “let’s get you back in the next fifteen minutes” bracket--to his credit, his temperature is down to an unimposing thirty-nine point five--it’s gone. He lets Erik choose where to sit, which is unsurprisingly with his back to the wall, at an equidistant point between the doors they came in and the entrance to the emergency department proper, and wheels up close beside him. 

“Well,” Charles says, brightly. “At least we won’t have too long a wait.” 

Erik huffs. “I should hope not.” 

“Hey, now. The fever’s gone down,” Charles protests. A woman sitting opposite them gets up and finds another seat, making Erik glower after her. 

«Germophobe, not mutantphobe, love,» Charles sends, with a mental prodding to draw Erik’s focus back where it’s a bit more appreciated. 

«There _are_ other options than mutantphobe,» Erik grumbles. At least he’s looking back at Charles. 

Only briefly, though; he’s soon glancing at a stack of magazines. 

“How’s your headache,” he asks, much to Charles’s confusion. He can usually just tell, unless he’s actively--

«We need to act more normally, don’t we? Aren’t we standing out?»

Charles struggles not to laugh in disbelief. It’s ludicrous, Erik worrying about offending human sensibilities. “Much better, thank you,” he says while thinking «that’s ridiculous, we’re _acting_ completely fine.» 

“Good.” Erik sorts a particularly threadbare copy of Consumer Reports out of the heap of discarded magazines. Do they even still print those? It seems a little archaic, but Erik looks completely at peace to be looking at the comparative specs of seventeen leaf blowers that, to Charles, appear identical. Erik doesn’t even have a yard. 

Charles sighs, giving up any hope of an ordinary telepathic conversation, and watches him. There’s something about Erik “acting natural” that’s forced and a bit entertaining, like an alien in one of those canned “we have to go back in time, but only to 20th century America” sci-fi plots. Erik turns the page. Now he’s studying lawn mowers. He’s taking this act far too seriously, his thoughts are entirely consumed with outdoor equipment. 

Looking away, Charles scans the room. Everything still seems glaring and far too bright, and he feels dizzy from it. 

Erik’s hand is cold over his own. «Charles--» Erik starts. But whatever he was about to send, he cuts off when Charles’s name is called out. Erik folds the magazine, placing it aside. He’d broadcasting a begrudging sort of surprise that it’s only been ten minutes since they’d been at triage. And he seems to be waiting for Charles to be the one to move, as if going back wasn’t already a foregone conclusion. 

Charles sighs. After all, it’s no use driving home in this weather. 

Hopefully, he thinks, this will be the most daunting part: heading through the doors, knowing he’s letting himself become once more what he’s always hated being. A patient.

And the transformation is as immediate as it ever is. It’s all gruelingly familiar. The only difference from all those years of his youth is having Erik’s quiet by him, listening to him tell the same story ten or twenty times, watching as his blood is drawn, as his arm gets banded--ID, allergy, mutation. He can feel Erik’s anger like a warm fire. It’s comfortable and welcome. All the same, Charles isn’t certain that it’s that much of an improvement to have Erik here. 

He’s always fared well enough, after all. It’s not as if Erik really needs to see him like this, or that it’s entirely beneficial having him heckling the staff. 

«How can they do that--single you out, mark you?» he thinks at Charles, when there’s small lull in his ninth account of his medical history. They must not use mutant-identification bands at the Veteran’s Administration. Or, more likely, maybe they just can’t do so on the floor Erik would be on. It wouldn’t do much for establishing trust between patients and staff, not--if you ask Erik--that the staff is ever worthy of trust his, anyway. 

Charles keeps talking to the resident while he answers. «I wouldn’t put you in the MRI suite. It serves a purpose, at times.»

« _At times_ ,» Erik mimics. «They don’t know from some cheap bit of plastic what your powers are. You’re making excuses for them again.» 

Them, meaning humans. Them, meaning this whole paranoid complex Erik has about the world where he just can’t compromise, where everyone’s always out to get mutantkind. 

Right now, Charles is just annoyed that Erik’s probably right. 

He’s getting an abbreviated lecture from a fucking first-year resident about the perils of drinking whilst paraplegic--like this child is even old enough to drink, himself--and Erik’s anger is something he’s suddenly covetous for, something he wants for himself. 

«And what do you expect me to do about it?» he snaps. The resident is droning on, and Charles can feel Erik holding himself very still, trying not to react. «What the hell do you want from me? Aren’t you listening? Erik, I can’t even enjoy a few beers, much less stage some entirely useless rebellion against a _cheap bit of plastic_.»

Erik’s mind draws back, as if stung. Just as well, Charles thinks. At least he can win _an_ argument. It’s not even worth getting in one with the resident--he’s just one of many faces Charles have to put up with, and likely never seen again--so all he can do is just put up with the speeches. Charles lets the resident lecture, he lets him finish his interview, lets him take his notes to run off to his attending. Erik is silent throughout it all, but when the resident leaves, that’s when someone comes in to draw blood. 

When the first of his surgeries ended in a massive bacterial complication, Charles received a rather harsh intro to the science of infectious medicine. 

It’s an education, he realizes belatedly as Erik stands between him and the door, that not everyone has been through.

“You just took his blood,” Erik growls. No doubt, Charles thinks, all the needles are now fishhooks. At least Erik isn’t naive enough to think that Charles is actually in danger of exsanguination--he’s just aggressively protective, deeply suspicious. Charles reaches out to grab his wrist. 

“Erik. It’s fine.” 

Looking down at him, Erik’s obviously thinking it again. _You’re making excuses for them_. But he does sit back down on the hard, battered chair he’d commandeered earlier. The tension in the room is heavy, and Charles reaches over to give Erik’s arm a squeeze before rolling up his right sleeve. 

It’s impossible not to read the phlebotomist's thoughts. Surface-level, they’re all suspicious of Erik, even more suspicious than Erik is of her. 

He thinks about explaining to Erik. They need two sets of blood cultures, preferably from different arms, he’d say. It reduces the margin of error. It’s more likely to catch the organism in question, should he actually be septic. It supplies controls, should one of the bottles be contaminated. Teaching is simple, it gets the focus off Charles himself. 

He also considers defending Erik to the phlebotomist. He might seem a little rough, but he means well by it. You’re wrong. He’d never knowingly hurt anyone. He’s gentler, kinder than even he’ll ever know. Don’t say anything, don’t accuse him of something like that, he’ll just think you’re right. 

But in the end, Charles says nothing to either of them. The needles are apparently unchanged. Charles watches his blood fill two syringes and get injected into a pair of bottles, just as surreal as it was the first time. While the phlebotomist’s still in the room, labeling the samples, someone else comes in with a tray of even longer needles and the annoyance coming off of Erik is a heavy, palpable thing. 

“They do have to start an IV somehow, my dear,” he says. The words do little to bank down Erik’s ire. 

“I know,” Erik grumbles back. He leans back in his seat, angling so he can watch them tie off yet another tourniquet, as they scrub again at his skin. At least, Charles thinks, it isn’t difficult to find a vein. The nurse is even kind enough to stab him mid-forearm, where it won’t cause a massive amount of trouble should Charles get it in his head to actually _use_ his wheelchair. «I’m not a fool,» Erik is sending, «but perhaps you are, if you think they can’t draw your blood and place that IV at once,» and it’s like he’s _trying_ to get Charles riled up, like he wants to ruin any brief second of gratitude Charles has towards a hospital employee. 

«I’m sure there’s some reason--»

Erik reacts to the unspoken, then, an exasperated huff of air. He’s thinking _excuses, again_ , but he’s not purposefully projecting to Charles. Still, the message is obvious. Charles silently fumes, lets himself be distracted by flurry of activity around them. He’s given tylenol, hooked up to a monitor, and they start infusing the antibiotics. A few times, Erik tries to speak to him, mind-to-mind. But Charles is irritated and worn-out and by now he’s entirely unwilling to fuel Erik’s paranoia, so he doesn’t listen. He’s not doing anything so overt as shielding, Erik’s consciousness is still bleeding over on to Charles’s own. 

But there’s no way Erik wouldn’t notice the dismissal. By the time a pack of doctors comes in--attending in tow--to tell Charles this isn’t going to be a matter of a few hours in the ER, Erik is just sitting there with arms crossed and back straight, his thoughts distant. 

The swarm of doctors step out as one, like a school of fish, a host of sparrows. The room is suddenly quiet, save for the constant blip of the monitor, and Charles looks down at himself. His coat is still balled up in his lap, along with his gloves and hat, and his arms--already covered with the marks from the blood draws--are curled around the mess. They look unfamiliar, like this is all just happening to someone else, to some other body. 

“I guess I’ll have to get a gown on,” he says, talking to himself. It all seems unnecessarily troublesome. He unballs the coat, trying to fold it neatly, making sure his wallet’s still in the front pocket. Physically, he’s feeling the slightest bit closer to well, like maybe the fever has broken. Otherwise--

“Do you want me to go ask for one?” 

Erik’s voice is hesitant. When Charles looks up, Erik is turned slightly toward him again, leaning in. Charles blinks, not sure when Erik moved. 

Eventually, he shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. He takes his cell phone from the coat, and passes the stack of clothes over to Erik. “No, they’ll be back soon enough.” 

As he takes it, Erik looks like he’s about to protest again. But, frustrated as he may be, Erik just refolds the coat without a word. Charles eyes the stretcher taking up the largest share of the room. 

Up until now, he’s just been swatting the very idea of him getting on it out of the heads of anyone coming in the room. Obviously, it’d make their life easier, were the staff allowed to poke and prod him from the comfortable height of a hospital stretcher, but Charles wasn’t about to transfer over if he was only a few hours from getting home. 

It’s a little pathetic, putting it off now. 

He uses his powers to check the thoughts beyond the room. No one’s on their way in, at least this moment. The nurse who’d given him the tylenol and started the antibiotics, he’s clear down in radiology, giving someone pain medication. He’s thinking of what to have for dinner. The other nurse, who’d put in the IV--she’s nearby, but seems to be rather preoccupied with a patient who is screaming that he’s fine and all he needs is a drink, can she just let him leave now. She’s wondering why she ever took this job. Charles keeps the tendrils of his telepathy carefully tucked up, away from the minds of the other patients, and turns to Erik once again.

“You wouldn’t mind,” he starts, gesturing at the stretcher. It’s not in the lowest position, so Erik will either have to bring it down or lift him up. For an uncomfortable moment, Erik just sits there, as if he’s waiting for Charles to continue. 

Then Erik stands, putting Charles’s coat on the chair. Charles watches him as he steps over toward the stretcher, as he hesitates. Feeling out an unfamiliar construction, Charles decides. 

Erik lowers it with his powers, and Charles lets out a long breath. He unlocks the chair and glances up at Erik again as he heads over. The distance isn’t terribly far, and it’s not like he didn’t have a youth of practicing the maneuver, so it’s not difficult to manage the IV pole. But something in Erik’s expression makes him look-- _impressed_ , somehow--and Charles isn’t about to _check_. Looping the tubing in his hand to keep it from pulling, Charles transfers to the stretcher. He doesn’t meet Erik’s gaze. Let him watch, Charles thinks, pulling his legs up. Let him be pleasantly surprised by how competent you are at being a fucking invalid--

“Mister Xavier?” someone interrupts. Charles rubs at his face, exhausted. At least he’s already settled. Nurses get so weird when you try to move anywhere on your own, as if the laws of gravity are more punishing in a hospital environment.

“Yes?” 

The nurse or tech, or whoever--they’re someone Charles hasn’t yet seen--flicks his gaze between Charles and Erik. And no wonder. Erik’s moved close to Charles again, standing with his hip against the stretcher. He isn’t the most welcoming of figures. 

“You, um,” he starts, before holding up a plastic cup. “We’ll need a urine sample.” 

And it’s all Charles can do not to laugh, again. It’s been hours since he’d last catheterized, and he was rather counting on some awkwardness, but this is a bit much. 

“That’s going to be an issue, I’m afraid,” he says. Right as he does, Erik’s also speaking, saying “maybe you should check over your orders again” in the mocking tone of someone who’s clearly been in a few arguments with medical personnel, so the poor guy appears particularly cowed as he retreats. 

Charles gives Erik a look. 

«There’s no need to be unkind,» he sends. 

“They’re incompetent,” Erik says, not quietly. He’s glaring at the door, like he’s willing someone to walk in and bear the brunt of his rage. 

Unfortunately, Charles can sense a few consciousnesses out there, ready to enter. 

“Be that as it may, I can defend myself,” he says, and Erik’s attention is suddenly entirely on him. 

“I know that. I never said--”

“It’s my right,” Charles interrupts, speaking in a hurried whisper. Beyond the door, they’re almost ready. “If I want to _make excuses_ or if I want to tell them all off, it’s all entirely up to me.”

“Of course it is,” Erik says. He sounds confused or stricken, or perhaps a mix of each, and Charles could stop but it feels like this is the last he’ll ever be in control. 

“The rules are different in a medical ward,” he continues, “and right now, you’re not terribly familiar with them. So.” 

Now it’s him, Charles thinks. He’s the one being unkind, and Erik’s actually taken a step back, as if dealt a physical blow. But in the same moment, the door’s opening, and the put-in-the-IV nurse and sample guy enter. 

And they’re not empty-handed. 

There’s the hospital gown, of course. But there’s also a white sterile-wrapped box, and if you’ve had a catheter once you’ll damn well recognize the kit when you see one. He doubts very much they’ll let him do it himself. 

The nurse doesn’t spend long explaining it. She just says they’re going to place a Foley, and she then turns to Erik with the solitary fearlessness of a nurse who has just finished putting a man three times her size in four-point restraints. 

“Why don’t you step out,” she suggests. 

It’s more a demand, actually. And Charles can feel Erik start to react, putting aside his hurt to be affronted by the very concept of being parted from Charles’s side. 

There’s no embarrassment on Charles’s part, about the _technicality_ of it. Of course Erik’s seen him naked, that goes without saying. He’s also seen Charles cath himself several times, and besides the first, it’s never been awkward. 

But having someone else do it is humiliating enough. Having Erik hover over the staff while they slather his prick in iodine? He may not be able to feel it, but he’d much prefer Erik’s image of his cock to remain entirely non-clinical. 

«Stop,» he sends. And Erik, bless him, actually does; he swallows back whatever tirade he was about to start in on, and he raises his eyebrow at Charles. It looks like he’s just responding to the nurse’s dismissal. Charles smiles up at him. 

“Well, I suppose I’m here for the night, aren’t I? Why don’t you take my chair to the truck, find yourself dinner?” 

Erik’s shock is almost visceral, like an electric jolt in Charles’s mind. 

“What?” he asks aloud, thinking, «you’d let them part us, you’d put yourself at their mercy,» and Charles gives him a mental push. 

«I’m already “at their mercy,” if you hadn’t noticed. Now stop being difficult, and _go_ », and he says something aloud, too, some meaningless words to make the conversation seem natural to the staff. But he can barely hear himself speak, with how Erik’s thoughts are, wounded and stunned in their connection. 

“Okay,” he says. He turns to pick up Charles’s coat, puts it in his chair. “You have your cell, right?” 

“Yes,” Charles replies. As he watches, Erik just levitates the chair, arrogant and carelessly proud. “Drive carefully,” Charles adds, and he pushes a suggestion clumsily forward. 

_Just go home. I’ll be fine. Get some sleep._

_Come back during visiting hours._

Erik blinks, and shakes his head. He doesn’t send anything back--the suggestion must have taken, Charles thinks--he just leans over for a quick kiss. 

“I’ll give you a call,” he says. And then he’s walking out, the chair hovering behind him, and Charles is at relieved and completely devastated at once. 

The nurse unhooks the IV, and he lets her and the tech help get him into the gown, lets them rearrange all the wires and the IV tubing, lets them shove his clothes and shoes into a plastic bag. At least it’s a slight improvement from the time he had to have all his clothes _cut_ off, he thinks. 

And when they rip open the sterile package, when they stand over him and start--all Charles can think is, it’s just as well he can’t feel what they’re up to. He talks with them about nothing consequential, about the weather, and studiously looks at the wall. It’s even more difficult to believe it’s happening to you when you can’t feel anything, when you can hear them opening packaging but you don’t know when they hold your dick, or when they’ve finished pushing the catheter in. They get their sample, they fix the tube to his leg, they hook the bag to the edge of the stretcher. It’s all done quickly enough, and afterwards they give him a blanket and the news that he’ll be down here for a bit longer. Apparently it’s taking a while for anyone to get a room. 

Who would have thought, he jokes, in this weather. 

After they’re gone, the room is all antiseptic silence. It’s cold and dull and like some idiot he went and scared off Erik. He doesn’t even have someone to argue with, he’s just laying here alone with a bunch of tubes and wires in a flimsy gown. He should be at home. He should be curled up on his couch watching something particularly mindless and trashy, he should be in bed with a Kindle loaded entirely in novels intended for teenage audiences. Thank god it’s winter break, he thinks. At the same time he wonders why this all has to happen now, why a fucking bladder infection has to ruin one of the few vacations he’s allowed. 

Rolling to his side is an ordeal with all the wires. But he does, pulling the blanket close, and against all better judgment he lets his consciousness expand outward, seeking Erik. 

He isn’t in the hospital. Already, he’s in the parking lot. 

Charles’s range is certainly large enough to trace him far beyond that, but he’s upset enough to draw back. 

What were you expecting, he berates himself. You _wanted_ him to go, you told him to leave. What did you think would happen? 

He scans the minds of those in the emergency room once more. 

Everyone is utterly focused on some other task, some other patient. Charles makes sure they stay that way a while, before covering his face with his hands.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for being patient with this last chapter, and for all the comments/kudos/bookmarks!

It’s already dark out, night air cutting, by the time Erik makes it out. There's the typical huddle of determined smokers outside the entrance and the parking lot is just as full as when they got here, but snowfall makes everything seem mute and remote. Erik trudges out to the truck, opens it without his keys, and pulls Charles's chair into the passenger seat. 

He sits there without turning the ignition, letting himself feel the cold. Charles’s dismissal stings, his sloppy attempt at manipulating Erik’s mind at once galling and concerning. Erik stares at his hands, knuckles white as he clutches at the wheel. 

Charles doesn’t want him here. He made that clear enough. He wants to be alone. He doesn’t want Erik around him at all for this, for whatever reason. Erik sits there shivering for a long time, cycling through the day in his mind, dissecting every action he’d taken. It’s not any secret to anyone that most of his decisions are just fucked-up mistakes. He’d messed up with Magda, and now he’s done it with Charles, he should just start driving home because that’s a sensible plan thought up by someone with a goddamn working brain. 

Sighing, Erik turns on the engine with his powers. He runs the defroster, starts counting his breaths, in and out, clearing his mind for the drive.

He only gets to twelve before his cell phone starts buzzing, loud and demanding in the silence of the car. 

Fumbling through his pockets for it, all he can think is _thank god I’m still here, what if they hurt him_. The phone’s on the sixth ring before he manages to get his coordination together to answer. 

“Charles, I’ll be right in,” he blurts, already reaching to kill the engine with his powers. 

“That’s the spirit,” is what he gets in return, in an entirely female voice. 

Erik pulls the phone away to frown at the caller ID. It’s no help, beyond proving that the call isn’t from Charles’s phone, or, indeed, from this area code. 

And it’s not as if he really needs to look, after all. 

“I’m still on the road, remember? Erik, please. I know I only have a few minutes,” he hears, and he shakes off his confusion to shoulder the phone again. 

“I remember,” he answers, tersely. It doesn’t answer why she’s bothering him now. It’s a rare occasion that she’ll think to call, even if they’ve always got on well enough. At least it’s doubtful to be anything to do with him, since she doesn’t even own a proper cell. He tries to think of a response that won’t make him sound too much like he’s pissed she’s just now figured out how to work the latest in her long chain of pay-as-you-go mobiles. 

“What do you want, Irene?” 

She doesn’t say anything for a minute, there’s just background sounds. Some distant noise from the other line, maybe of a television or conversation. Tired and impatient to start on the drive home, Erik grumbles at her to get on with it, that he’s had a long enough night as it is.

“Well, you do have the choice,” she says. It’s almost nonsensical, and she sounds absent-minded, like she’s paying more attention to the television or whoever’s with her. 

Sighing, Erik waits her out. With anyone else, he’d probably hang up. But he’s known Irene for a very long time, now--actually, longer than he’s known Charles. It was harder to tell when they were thirteen-year-olds on a listserv, but she’s always been this distracted. It’s like she’s balancing every timeline, weighing her future options. 

“You should get some dinner,” she chooses to say. Erik rubs at the bridge of his nose. 

“That _was_ the plan. Where are you?” 

“Doesn’t matter. Biloxi,” she says. Out of the way enough, Erik thinks, for it to be the end destination of this summer vacation thing she’s taken the kids on while Raven’s stuck working, and he wonders why _there_ , anyway, and when’s she coming back--

“Don’t fish, Erik, and I meant you should get some dinner there. Where _you’re_ at, that’s the important thing. The cafeteria will be open another hour.” 

“I’m not eating that slop willingly.” He just went out for groceries yesterday. There’s no need to spend any extra money for food, particularly for _hospital_ food; no need to eat in what’s essentially an too-vulnerable mess hall. 

“Maybe it’s better. They probably have tea.” 

The non-sequitur doesn’t throw him too much. Why else would she be trying to get him to stay here, other than to stay with her brother-in-law? 

“You can still fuck up tea,” he tells her. Maybe he’s just got low blood sugar and doesn’t know it. Maybe he just needs to eat here so he won’t fall asleep at the wheel on the way home, so he won’t wipe out somewhere on the road, and perversely he--

“Go on, it can’t be that awful. Eat dinner, get your impossible boyfriend the shitty tea he deserves,” she says, and before he can protest she blurts out the last of it. “We care about you.” 

Erik lets out a long, shaky breath. Sometimes he hates this, the timelines she sees, the extent of Charles’s telepathy. Bad enough he upsets people when he says toxic bullshit like that, but even just _thinking_ it, or having some alternate self beyond his control acting it out--he’s always hurting someone. 

“Irene, Charles doesn’t want anything from me. Not tonight,” he tells her, instead. 

He feels a bit stupid having to say so. Surely her powers picked up _that_ much if she’s calling at all. Charles’s dismissal seems--at least to Erik--to have been the turning point of the entire night, there’s no way Irene could have missed it. 

“Sure he does. Just try it,” she insists. “You know Charles, he’s always trying to do that thing.” 

Irene’s not any more specific. Honestly, she doesn’t have to be. _That thing_ only ever refers to Charles’s constant tendency to decide he’s got everyone’s best interest all lined up, so to hell with anyone else. It’s a pattern that Erik knows isn’t entirely healthy, but that he can’t help finding reassuring, sometimes. There’s matters he’ll always fight Charles on, but… At the same time, there’s all too many occasions when it’s just simpler this way, letting Charles choose. 

“Yeah.” He sits for a moment, just listening to the staticy noise from the other line. 

It’s never easy, changing course. Even with the weather, the long drive, the fact he’ll spend a night alone and awake, worrying after Charles when he’s too far off to do any good--getting on the road would be far less difficult than what Irene’s proposing. 

He looks back over at the lights of the hospital, hazy through the falling snow. 

“You’d say if there was food poisoning in my future.”

“I wonder.”

Erik smiles to himself. It feels suddenly too long since he’d last seen her. Or just talked to her, just the two of them, though in retrospect he supposes most of their interpersonal communications occurred long enough ago that they were held over dial-up. They’d fallen out of touch for years before she just happened to bump into Raven. He’s never believed much in coincidence, at least not when it comes to Irene. 

“Always knew you had it out for me,” he says. He pauses a second, and then he’s unable to help himself, he needs to ask.

“What would have happened?” 

He knows it annoys her, that even Raven is included in the blanket moratorium on asking about the future, but it’s like picking at a scab--not healthy, but everyone has an instinctive drive to do it anyway. Obsessively, Erik wants to know the end result of every stupid decision he has or hasn’t made. 

This time, Irene answers quickly. “You and Charles would have had a miserable night.” 

“Could you be more specific?” 

“Mmm,” she spaces out for another long moment. There’s a bunch of sirens and an explosion in the background. Erik’s reasonably sure now that it’s a television. He at least hopes as much. “Not really. Nothing tragic, though. Just--needless.”

“I’m already having a miserable night, why stop it now,” he says, mostly talking to himself, and Irene makes an exasperated noise. 

“Why _not_ stop it now? You’ve always been a glutton for punishment,” she tells him, and he snorts. There’s no arguing that. 

“No, nothing tragic,” she repeats, slow and thoughtful. “You know, Erik, I never can figure out what it is everyone expects. The apocalypse? I’m sorry to disappoint. You and Charles wouldn’t have even broken up. But still miserable, remember, don’t try and talk yourself out of anything.” 

She delivers the whole monologue at her most absent-minded, nearly inflectionless. When she continues on, her sudden dismissal is nothing but expected. 

“--and now that it’s sorted, I have to go. Tantrums.” 

“All right,” he says. Better not to keep asking. “Tell Anna Marie hello, then.” 

“Mm, no, it’s the baby. He’s about to appear in here,” she says. Better to not ask, Erik reminds himself. 

“I’m sure you have it under control. Listen, Irene--call anytime, okay? Safe travels.” 

“Same to you.” For a moment, she sounds entirely present. When she continues, though, the moment is clearly over. “Oh, and by the time you get in, he’ll probably have moved up from the emergency room, just ask someone, okay? Bye.” 

The line’s already dead before he can reply. It’s typical Irene, but it takes him long enough to sort out his thoughts and pocket his phone again, he doesn’t doubt Charles has long since left the ER. 

He sighs again, wishes that he was doing anything and was anywhere else than this. He locks the truck. The walk back is insurmountably long. 

At least, when he gets there, cafeteria isn’t entirely crowded. But it’s not entirely open either, Irene was wrong about that. It’s just one cashier, a bunch of prepack crap, and a coffee stand that are still running, the line’s long since been shut down. Erik takes the least troubling salad on display. Picking at it, he watches the coffee stand, willing the likely-underpaid worker to stay there. She’s bagging cookies, millions of them from the appearance of things. The packaging is superfluously decorative. This is, he supposes, what a hospital is like when it’s not just there because the government demands it. At least the food tastes the same. 

He sits there until it seems as if the--well, “barista” seems a bit charitable, given the equipment on hand--underpaid employee is about to close up. Forced to stop wasting time, he heads over. The tea selection isn’t awful. He buys himself black coffee, even if his anxiety needs nothing less. He feels awkward, out of his element despite the fact he’d just been hospitalized himself, not that long ago. 

You can’t tip in a hospital. He knew that. God, what’s he thinking? His stomach churns, the information desk isn’t even open. He has to ask a security guard about Charles, they ring up the unit and everything, like it was lockdown. The fifth floor, he’s told, and go on up. 

He takes the stairs. When he gets there, the unit is loud, a commotion of alarms and frazzled staff. No one pays him any mind at all when he goes to look for Charles’s room. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Charles has a roommate. Erik pauses outside the door, thinking of how Charles might react once they see each other. But it’s absurd to keep delaying when he’s come this far, and when he opens the door he does so with his powers, by far more sure than he feels. 

The roommate appears to be asleep, the room is surprisingly silent for how noisy it is outside. Erik closes the door, quietly as he can, and strides back, past the curtain dividing the beds. 

Charles is turned away from him, the blankets drawn up. One arm’s out, hand curled around the covers, IV tubing taped to his skin. The hospital gown is a few sizes too large, the neck slipping and exposing Charles’s shoulder and and the thin line of his clavicle. 

Stepping closer, Erik sets the tea down on the table beside Charles’s bed. Like this, Charles seems delicate. Small. 

At least there’s a chair in the room already. Legs feeling unsteady, Erik collapses into it. 

Was Charles this pale when he left? 

“Erik?” Charles mumbles. A gentle brush of telepathy goes over his mind. Erik tries not to feel guilty. That Charles had been sleeping, that had at least been _something_ , and Erik is just sorry to wake him now. 

“Yes,” he whispers, leaning forward. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

Charles snuffles, a disgusting and long noise, and blinks up at him. Erik feels ridiculously fond of him, despite it, and he reaches over to push Charles’s hair back. The skin under his eyes looks bruised, like he’s been awake for weeks.

“You look hideous,” he says, and Charles smirks in agreement. 

“Yes, thank you.” He reaches up to take Erik’s hand, and stares up at him. “You’re here. You didn’t leave.” 

“Hmm. Think you can play your little tricks on me when you’re like this, do you?” 

“Apparently not. God, but you’re a welcome sight. I’m so glad.” 

Erik can’t help smiling, tracing his thumb over Charles’s knuckles. Of course, he’s glad as well--happy to be with Charles, to be greeted like this--but he can’t think of what to say. 

“And you brought tea,” Charles continues. “You’re an angel.” 

“Don’t get excited, it’s cafeteria issue.” 

“All the same,” Charles says. He hauls himself up, taking the tea to cautiously sip at it. “Lovely.” 

“I truly doubt that,” Erik says under his breath. He watches Charles as he takes a few more sips before setting the cup back aside. 

He looks so tired, Erik thinks again. Perhaps Irene was wrong, it wouldn’t be the first. Needless misery or not, Charles needs his sleep. Erik sips at the burnt acidic coffee he spent a dollar too much for, and Charles shifts himself again, lying back down. Curled on his side, he's obviously watching, his eyes still a little glassy from fever. Erik tries not to react to the scrutiny and just sits there, drinking his ulcerating coffee. 

“Erik,” Charles says after a long moment, “Why don’t you come here.” 

Frowning, Erik picks at the cardboard sleeve on his coffee. He scoots the plastic chair closer, near as he can with the table and IV pole in the way, his knees crammed against the dead plastic of the hospital bed.

“Better?” he asks. Charles huffs, a short, exasperated noise. 

“No, you--Look. Please. Just come here,” Charles repeats, patting the mattress by his side. 

Erik tries to keep himself from appearing utterly perplexed. It’s a hospital bed. It’s barely made for one adult, much less two. However small Charles may look in it, Erik doubts he can wedge himself in. 

“There’s plenty of space.” Charles lifts himself up, gets his hips over to free up a half-inch of mattress. “I swear. Look, loads of room. Get your skinny ass in.” 

Erik stands, coffee still in hand, and--suddenly remembering, looks over at the thin curtain. 

“Oh, god. A, he’s asleep. B, he left his hearing aids at home. And C, he’s actually sick. He could care less what you and I get up to, so long as he’s getting enough zofran.” 

With a sigh, Erik sets his coffee on the table by Charles’s tea. He looks down at Charles. 

“Fine. But--” he glances again at the curtain, and lowers his voice. “There’s not rules against this?” he asks. Having been kicked out by Charles once, he doesn’t want to repeat the experience with anyone else. 

“It’s not a--” Charles cuts himself off, blushing. “Shit. Erik, I wasn’t--I didn’t mean that.” 

_Not a psych ward_ , he was about to say. The words are obvious, even unsaid, and Erik lets the anger rise in him, lets himself feel the burn of it deep in his chest, and lets it go. 

Saying nothing, he leans down to pry off his boots, and crawls in the narrow bed. 

“You weren’t thinking,” Erik tells him, keeping his voice carefully neutral. He wraps one arm around Charles’s waist. “But you’re right. It’s not.” 

In the gown, Charles even feels small, his weight somehow less substantial. He winds his arms around Erik, minding with the left, where the IV remains connected. Erik closes his eyes, soaking in the warmth of Charles’s telepathy, in the gentle scratch of Charles’s nails on his scalp. 

“I am sorry,” Charles says. “And not just for that. I’m sorry for kicking you out, I’m sorry for not telling you how sick I was this morning. I’m sorry for pushing you away.” 

Erik pulls him closer, presses a kiss to the exposed skin over Charles’s collarbone. He almost interrupts, almost tells Charles it’s all okay, that he forgives him for all of it. But this is more than an apology. He’s quiet when Charles stops talking, letting Charles formulate whatever it is he needs to say. 

«I’m so sorry for pushing you away. But the last time I had to be in a hospital bed was years ago,» he sends. Erik can see it in his mind: a Charles motionless in bed, thin and pathetically young, the tug of pain from incisions low on his back; the fevers that ran through him; _complications, we’ll have to go in again_. «I was only a teenager, and Raven was only younger, and mother found it all quite dull. I’m afraid I’m not used to anyone seeing me like this.»

The IV pump makes an odd chirp, startling Erik. Charles’s hand slides down to cup his nape. “Antibiotic's done. It’s just kicking back over to the fluids,” he explains. His voice is worn. “I still can't imagine why anyone thought that required a sound effect.”

Easing back, Erik curves his hand over Charles’s bicep. “Before, you always did this alone,” he says. It makes sense, now, every move Charles has made. 

It’s the last piece he needed, settling in Erik’s mind. 

«I want to be by you,» he sends, «but if that’s how you’ve done things, if you’re not comfortable being seen like this--I can go. I’ll leave for you.»

“No.” Charles’s hands tighten around him. «Don’t you dare.» 

Erik smiles against Charles’s shoulder. «Okay, then. If you insist.»

«I insist,» Charles thinks. He brushes Erik’s jaw, pressing gently so Erik looks up, so they’re face-to-face again. 

“I always did this alone. But I’m not eighteen anymore,” he jokes, “and I’m not alone, either. We’re neither one of us alone, not anymore.” 

He says it with such conviction, Erik almost wants to look away. Sometimes it stuns him, the force and intensity Charles has, but he keeps his gaze level. “In sickness and health, is that it?” he asks, voice unsteady. 

Charles flashes a grin. “Something like that.”

“And you’re sure,” Erik quietly adds, “that you want to throw your lot in with me? I’m sort of--” the first word that comes to mind is _broken_ , the next _monster_ , but he doesn’t want to upset Charles again. “Sort of a mess,” he concludes. 

“‘Sort of,’” Charles repeats, but it doesn’t sound unkind. «Seriously, Erik, look at us. We’re both a mess, we’re both a great irreparable mess. But at least we can muddle through together?»

The last, Erik thinks Charles meant to be a statement. But there’s something uncertain in his thought that makes it come out a question, and Erik leans in to kiss him again. 

«In good times and in poor, then», he thinks, and Charles laughs. 

“That’s not how it goes, I don’t think. Isn’t it ‘in richness and poorness’?” 

Erik rests his forehead against Charles’s, feels the barrier between their minds go even more hazy, pressed as close as they are. 

«Obviously money doesn’t matter, you rode here in _my_ truck,» he sends, and Charles’s mind sparks with amusement before he’s even done with the thought. 

“Well, then,” Charles whispers, cupping the side of Erik’s face with one hand. Charles’s fingertips are cool against his temple, when they’re usually so warm; the bands around his wrist scratch up against Erik’s skin. But it’s easily ignored when they’re connected so deeply, mind-to-mind. «In good times and poor it is.»


End file.
